'Let him boast': Expert says Trump’s phantom trade deals are a global punchline
August 07, 2025
A University of Michigan economics and public policy professor revealed that over his summer vacation, he met with some foreign officials who continue to mock President Donald Trump.
Speaking to MSNBC on Thursday, Justin Wolfers was asked about Apple's new announcement that it would invest $100 billion in U.S. manufacturing. He joked that his young children would spend $200 billion on toy manufacturing in the United States, and he would personally kick in $101 billion.
"You have it just as much in writing from me that it will be $101 billion from my family and my kids. They want to bring back toy manufacturing," he quipped.
"So, you sound skeptical about all this," said fill-in host Erielle Reshef.
He explained that people who invest money and build companies in the United States are looking at the long game. All of Trump's tariffs are implemented through an executive order, rather than being approved by Congress. It means that the next president can come into office and reverse all of Trump's orders.
"I just came back from two weeks in Japan, and I was talking to a variety of very senior government officials, none of whom I can name on the record. And let me tell you, the Japan deal involves what the senators described as being hundreds of billions of dollars coming in and 90% of the profits going to the United States," Wolfers said. "And there is no one in Japan who understands the deal remotely in those terms."
"More than that, you'll notice that this is a trade deal where we haven't seen a single word in writing," continued Wolfers. "And I think there's probably a pretty big reason for that. The Japanese were happy to leave this deal unwritten, so that Trump and [Scott] Bessent could tell whatever stories they want to tell about it, while not actually making the Japanese live up to any of this."
"And so, there's a lot of strategic ambiguity here, the ambiguity being, let's let the president boast about what he wants, but we don't actually have to deliver," Wolfers said.
See the clip below or at the link here.
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